Ke-Go bombs model 106

[Grzegames]

[Would you like to see this in-game?]

• Yes
• No

[Which aircraft do you want it to be added to?]

• Ki-67
• P1Y1
• P1Y1 and Ki-67
• no

Ke-Go bombs model 106 (ケ号爆弾)
The Ke-Go was a Japanese infrared-guided aerial bomb. About 95 such bombs were made. The system worked better, but the war was over before mass production began.
History
In March 1944, on the initiative of the Land Forces Command, the 7th Military Laboratory was established to deal with infrared guided bombs. The Army assumed that the guided bomb would be able to destroy American ships from a safe distance.7 A military laboratory is ordered to design a new guided bomb. Three projects are created under the names B-1, B-2 and B-3, it soon turns out that B-2 and B-3 are useless and all the work is directed to the B-1 project, which gets the name Ke-Go. The work is directed by Major Fujita. Major Hizuta is in charge of aerodynamics, Major Sonoba is in charge of electronics, and Prof. Konishi of Osaka University is in charge of calculations.Prof. Sano (electronics) and Dr. Itakawa (aerodynamics) are also involved in the project. The bombs of the first two models (model 101 and 102) were already ready in December 1944, due to the lack of gyroscopes, these two versions are very inaccurate. Then the models numbered 103 (gyroscopes were already installed in this bomb), 104 and 105 were designed, none of them were built, but allowed for better designs of future versions.Thanks to previous experience, the 106 and 107 models were designed and built. 50 units of the 106 model and 30 units of the model 107 were produced, respectively. They started testing them and it turned out that although there were problems with the control systems, the bombs are very effective once they hit the target. In June 1945, testing was discontinued in order to design new models. This is how the 108 and 109 models were created, they were supposed to be ready for testing in September 1945, but the war ended before then.
Structure description
The Ke-Go bomb was cylindrical in shape with a nose and a conical tail section of the fuselage. It was divided into three sections, from nose to tail: the acorn homing gunner, the warhead, the instrument compartment, and the tail section the air brake. The tail of the bomb was cross-shaped, four wings with a span of 2 meters and four tail fins were arranged in the shape of the letter X. The hull plating of the homing head and the air brakes of the bomb were made of metal, the rest of the plating was made of wood.The warhead was located directly behind the homing warhead, the fuze contact sensors were moved to the front of the missile. The 200 kg or 300 kg HEAT warhead was designed to pierce the decks of battleships and aircraft carriers.To simplify the work of the guidance system, the trajectory of the bomb after dropping should be as close to vertical as possible. To extinguish the horizontal in the tail section of the “Ke-Go”, sliding truss air brakes were installed. Immediately after separating from the carrier, the brakes deployed and braked the horizontal element of the bomb’s flight. The maximum speed of the Ke-Go was limited to 530-580 km/h

Information from the U.S. report on Ke-Go bombs

Photos from the U.S. report

U.S. Intelligence Report

Wayback Machine (archive.org)

Specifications

• Length: 4,74 m (15,5 ft)
• Wing Span: 2,0 m (6.5 ft)
• Wing Area: 1,4 square metres
• All-Up Weight: 725 kg ( 1,600 lbs)
• Warhead: 200 or 300 kg HEAT

Description of operation
A bomb dropped from a bomber plane fell in free flight. Moments after being ejected from the plane, the air brake on the back of the bomb was deployed, slowing it down and putting it in an upright position. A thermal tracking system was then activated, which searched for the warmest objects below it (e.g. aircraft carriers or battleships) and guided it to the target with the help of ailerons and gyroscopes. The bomb struck the target in a vertical position and, thanks to the HEAT warhead, was able to penetrate the deck.This application had a big problem. If you have already hit a ship and it catches fire, all the next missiles that will be dropped on a group of ships will fly only on the damaged one. In the game, the Ke-Go bomb will only work on battleships and aircraft carriers or ships that are on fire, due to the very early thermal tracking technology.

Aircraft carring Ke-go bombs

1. KI-67 (U.S. report)
2. P1Y1 (Japanese Sources)
3. It was planned that it could be carried by any bomber with a carrying capacity of 800 kg

Summary
The Ke-Go bomb would be a very nice addition for Japanese aircraft in naval battles. Anyone who has played naval battles knows how difficult it is to get close to an enemy ship, and this bomb allows you to drop your payload from a safe height and escape. Anticipating questions about tanks, it didn’t work because it’s a very early thermal sensing technology and tanks wouldn’t be seen. I encourage you to discuss in the comments and to share your own knowledge on this topic.
Finally, I apologize for the linguistic and logical errors because unfortunately English is not my main language and I had to use google translator.

Internet Sources

Уголок неба ¦ Япония Ki-147 I-Go-1 (airwar.ru)
Ke-Go - Nevington War Museum
ケ号爆弾 - Wikipedia

Book Sources

1. Japanese Secret Projects Experimental Aircraft 1939-1945 page 134-135
   Japanese Secret Projects Experimental Aircraft 1939-1945 | PDF | Fighter Aircraft | Aircraft (scribd.com)
2. “Japanese Infra Red Devices Article 1 Control For Guidene Missles” - “Intelligence Targets Japan” of november 1945
   Wayback Machine (archive.org)

[LukTroy]

+1. It would make the 2 Japanese bombers much more interesting.

[JamesPond1200-psn]

Due to the gyroscope, does it have inertial tracking in addition to the IR seeker, in case it loses lock? Either way, this is super cool. +1

[Grzegames]

yes, the US Army report shows that the wing flaps were controlled by a sensor on the head, and the gyroscope controlled the ailerons

[JamesPond1200-psn]

Cool!

[Fireraid233]

very unique weapons for its time. modern day equivalent for Japan would of been GCS-1 kit so that’s interesting to see.

[Noveos_Republic]

It’s not sensitive enough to lock on to the smokestacks?

[CharAznable3]

Big yes we need these for naval

[BadGirl7090-live]

abandoned?

[Grzegames]

In what sense?

[BadGirl7090-live]

didnt gaijin care about this?

[Grzegames]

I’d bet Gaijin couldn’t care less. Indigenous Japanese CAS and ASW capabilities were only added recently, and in a bizarre way at that. They added the ASM-1/2/3 exclusively for the F-2, completely ignoring the F-1 and F-4EJ Kai. They added the Ki-93-I Ko but ignored other Japanese CAS aircraft from various eras (such as the Ki-51 or T-1). It seems to me that Gaijin has no intention of adding the heat-seeking bomb that almost every Japanese bomber could carry (with the exception of the D3A and D4Y dive bombers). Gaijin prefers adding copy-paste content from sub-trees or ignoring the issue entirely rather than adding something unique (people waited a long time for the Ki-93; it was the first Japanese WWII tech-tree aircraft added in five years).

[CharAznable3]

Japan’s CAS lack is a bit of a issue though Japanese CAS will always be lacking its worse then it has to be. Japanese bombers also lack there extra bomb loads.

[Grzegames]

Honestly? I think a true Japanese CAS lineup would be comparable to those of other nations. For example:

1. Ki-51: bombs up to 250 kg + Ro-3/5 rockets + M8 rockets.
2. Ki-102 Otsu: bombs up to 800 kg + 57 mm HEAT rounds + I-Go Otsu missile.
3. A6M7 is essentially an A6M5 Hei with a slightly better engine (both should offer custom loadout options).
4. Ki-201: 1,000 kg of bombs + 20 mm and 30 mm cannons.
5. T-33A: 2,000 lb of bombs + rockets.
6. T-1A: 1,500 lb of bombs + rockets + machine gun pods.
7. FS-T2 Kai: an improved F-1 armed with ASM-1/2 missiles and GCS-1 guided bombs.

Honestly, if I had to choose between Japanese CAS and options from the sub-trees, I’d always pick the Japanese ones. The Albatros—and the Dragonfly, for instance, in the future—are cool, but Japanese aircraft are more unique; they’re often weaker than their counterparts from other nations, but that’s exactly where the fun lies. I prefer something more challenging—like using the Ki-102 for CAS right now—because it’s ultimately more rewarding.

[CharAznable3]

There are options for Japanese CAS but yes I do sort of agree it is easy for Gaijin to make a skin and do they copy paste. Japan never really went pull P-47 / P-51 style of load out in WW2 this is where the sub tree can help out a little.

At least Japan did invest in true anti-personal munitions which will be useful in infantry. About munitions they even had airdropped sea mines (anything that could take 800kg bomb could hull one yet we don’t have them. They used the parachute method so no fun in games in ground but without that type of munition it does subtract from the utility of air.

The other issue is Japan did sort of burn everything at the end of WW2 so some munitions in service / experimental are on shaky ground. Gaijins kamikaze rules also make some munition load outs hard to add even if one could argue it was not always the case. Good thing being guns seemed to have escaped that fate.

[Grzegames]

(Japan “definitely” didn’t captured P-40E, P-40N, P-51C, P-47D, F6F-5, and F4U-1C fighters…), but yes.

Oh, and I forgot to mention Japanese weaponry like the Type 2 Ta-Dan, Type 99 Model 3 AA Bomb, I-Go Ko, I-Go Hei, Ke-Go, etc. It always amuses me how everyone gets so worked up over German or American Wunderwaffen, while Japan also had some fascinating tech that gets overlooked (for instance, the I-400, which—at the time of its creation—was more advanced in many respects than any other submarine in the world; I’m not claiming it was superior in every way, though).

[CharAznable3]

I-400 became sort of the back bone tech wise of the boomer subs of the Cold War she was no hunter had plenty of issues but I-400 also had sound absorbing rubber blocks. (I-400 had some really poor crew life quality issues as well even for the era) But there was a reason why USA wanted to keep then out of the hands of the USSR but a bulk of the issues of Japanese subs came to tactics and the cruiser sub idea.

The additional sub trees could get us some classics from other nations like the P-51 (Indonesia) Spitfire Bearcat (Thailand) could help out with the whole fighter bomber issue I’m not anti-sub tree though Gaijin needs to though look over vehicles and unique munitions Japan had. The other funny issue that cant be fixed though outside of the sub tree addition is the little fact Japan was supposed to be demilitarized after WW2 so unlike Italy who got WW2 allied surplus outside of the police reserve (all guns) Japan did not get any of that fun WW2 surplus. One could in theory argue there was some cross training over the years with USA Japan pilots / vehicles but its a bad argument.

[skultew1234]

@CharAznable3

About munitions they even had airdropped sea mines (anything that could take 800kg bomb could hull one yet we don’t have them.

Do you have more about it like data and sources?

@Grzegames

Type 97 Model 3 AA Bomb

It is Type 99

[CharAznable3]

Don’t worry I got one

Its from End of WW2 USA document so it has a lot of good stuff.

OP-898-1945.pdf

The Mines

There not the best mine but they do the work.

[Grzegames]

I wrote that quickly from memory, but you’re right.